


we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood

by templemarker



Series: love + rhetoric + blood [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: (entirely background interventions), Bisexual Character, Bisexual Erasure, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Disabled Character, Depression, Disabled Character, F/M, Gen, Interventions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Other, Therapists, Therapy, canon-typical suicidal references, look I really feel like all these relationships are entirely justified despite occurring off screen, so about that fillorian opium, that good ol-fashions therapy runaround, there's that tag again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 18:12:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18474370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templemarker/pseuds/templemarker
Summary: Quentin had tried, okay, he was trying. He even agreed, although it was kind of under duress -- it was like Eliot and Margo and Julia and Alice and even fuckingPenny, who wasn't evenfrom this fucking timelineand still defaulted tohating Quentin's guts-- decided Intervention Tuesday was the way to go.





	we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood

**Author's Note:**

> In this edition of This Wasn't What I Meant to Write....
> 
> I am almost thoroughly certain there will be more. I just have to, er. Write it. 
> 
> Takes place entirely speculatively many months beyond 4x13, so if you are reading this in the future be aware that it likely represents an alternate reality. [On the bright side, it represents an alternate reality where people care about Quentin's mental health.] No spoilers. Please note this piece engages with Quentin's mental health consonant with the show's canon; check the tags to see if it's your speed.

Quentin had tried, okay, he was trying. He even agreed, although it was kind of under duress -- it was like Eliot and Margo and Julia and Alice and even fucking _Penny_ , who wasn't even _from this fucking timeline_ and still defaulted to _hating Quentin's guts_ \-- decided Intervention Tuesday was the way to go; instead of a whole group thing around the PK cottage living room, it was one minor emotional ambush after another with careful touches or soft voices or pointed looks that belied Serious Worry -- yeah, Margo, you caught feelings, sucks to be you. 

So like the point is that he has _been trying_ , but somehow everyone forgot that he'd spent more than ten years of his life once puberty hit talking to fucking therapists. Therapists, counselors, case managers, psychologists comma child comma teen, psychiatrists comma prescribing. Group therapy. Peer counseling. Nature-exposure therapy -- that was _definitely_ "fun" until the poison ivy. 

For fuck's sake, everyone seemed to have blanked -- _Julia seemed to have blanked_ \-- on the fact that right before the whole Brakebills deal, Quentin voluntarily admitted himself. 

Therapy was not new.

Still, he agreed to try. He got all the way to the end of the day and Eliot's wounded eyes, Margo's firm clutch of his arm, they did their job and Quentin agreed that he would go back to therapy. He pointed out that, six months post-Monster Situation, he'd carefully complied with his med protocol, met with his psychiatrist in Chelsea to adjust things. He wasn't -- things were fine. He was fine. For him, he was fine. 

But. Margo's hand. Eliot's eyes. Julia's fragile mouth. Alice's relentless, nervous sideways glances. Penny's no-bullshit if slightly long-suffering scowl. 

Fine. His first try was his old therapist, pre-Brakebills; he'd been with Quentin from Columbia, helped him during the depression sabbatical Quentin took sophomore year, agreed to halt appointments and refer Quentin out once Q knew where he was going for his masters. That guy -- gone, off to California two years ago, something about his daughter and foster kids. Quentin set up a phone call with the person who took over his practice, but that was -- nope. He sounded... He sounded too much like Martin. Freaked Quentin out, a little. 

Second try, fine, referral from his psych -- he didn't love getting counseling referrals from his psychs, they didn't always understand what Quentin was going for and generally tended to send him the way of Very Gregarious Therapists, the ones who talked about EMDR and activity-oriented group therapy and referenced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as if it were a successful child. But whatever. He went. She was fine. It was fine. He tried it for three weeks, his standard benchmark for "will this work? will you actually listen to what I'm saying? are we having a conversation, or am I talking into a void? are you talking more than I am?"

Quentin has met with a lot of therapists. 

She was fine, but it was clear it wasn't going to work -- Q got the sense that she dealt with higher-risk patients than him, which he was kind of offended by. Seriously, it might have been years ago now but he did self-refer to in-patient! He wasn't, like, complaining about mommy issues here. Whatever, it didn't matter, it wasn't going to work; she didn't think he was a good fit for her practice, and he definitely felt like he was talking into a void. So she referred him on to a colleague, and Quentin dutifully made a new patient consultation appointment and trudged his ass to the fucking Bowery. 

They were warm and welcoming when Quentin got there -- it started out pretty decent -- and the first appointment went well enough that Quentin was willing to schedule a second one with them. Second, third, fourth, fifth, it seemed promising despite Quentin having to haul from the Upper West Side, where the Brakebills portal was oh-so-ironically placed near Columbia. Half an hour on the good days. Forty-five minutes nearly every single time. It's fine. It was totally fine. He got a lot of reading done. The last Game of Thrones book finally came out and it was really long. Plus it turned out that, once a person has actually sat in a council meeting in a monarchial court in an improbable fantasy landscape (give or take wearing a crown while you're doing it, as the case may be) one's reactions and opinions take on a startlingly different tenor.

His therapist really succeeded in creating an atmosphere that made Quentin feel, if not comfortable -- c'mon, he's never comfortable -- at the minimum able to engage with the process at hand. But the thing was, it was really, really difficult. They didn't make it difficult. They were great. They just knew enough, and were good enough, to clearly tell when Quentin was lying. Obfuscating. _Carefully editing everything he was saying because he was talking to a muggle._

And it was a wonder that he hadn't been back to therapy in years. Being stuck in other worlds/dimensions/timelines/universes notwithstanding. 

"Look," they said, their tone frank, understanding, and compassionate. "I'm not sure we're going to get much done here if you feel like you have to lie to me even under confidentiality. The only things you've been completely straightforward about are your parents, and your sexuality. And I'm pretty sure you didn't come here to work through that one."

Quentin rolled his eyes and huffed out a breath. " _I_ don't have anything to work out about that. I figured that out when I was a teenager and it was so far from being the biggest problem I had at fourteen. _Other people_ \--"

They smiled. "Eliot," they prompted, "Alice, your mother..."

"Yes! Other people need to work out their feelings about my sexuality, which is so absurd I feel like I'm in Stoppard sometimes." Quentin slumped back into the egregiously comfortable chair, looking at the floor. 

"'What a fine persecution—to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened'," they quoted, and Quentin would have been impressed except he was getting fired from the first therapist he'd liked in years for completely appropriate reasons. 

They sat back, looking at Quentin thoughtfully and with all that fucking compassion behind their square purple-rimmed glasses. "Quentin, if you can't be honest with me -- when it seems like you're clear-eyed enough to be honest with yourself -- what do you think you will need from a therapist, in order to feel comfortable disclosing your perspective without rampant, extensive editing?"

Well. When you put it that way, it was obvious. 

He needed a magical therapist.

**Author's Note:**

> “We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.” 
> 
> ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
> 
> *
> 
> “What a fine persecution—to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened.” 
> 
> ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
> 
> *
> 
> Fun fact: I do not like Stoppard! But I had to read a whole lot of it in graduate school. Good times.
> 
> Further author's notes available on [Dreamwidth](https://templemarker.dreamwidth.org/55448.html). 
> 
> If you liked it please consider [reblogging](https://templemarker.tumblr.com/post/184199612392/we-cant-give-you-love-and-rhetoric-without-the)!


End file.
